by Elder Duncan Lewis
Conversion: “Denotes changing one’s views, in a conscious acceptance of the will of God… Complete conversion comes after many trials and much testing.”¹
Whenever a story is told, or a piece of someone’s history is shared, it is important to reflect on the context of why it is being shared. For example, a parent might share a story of them being burned by a stove in the context of their children getting too close to a hot burner. A friend might share a fun memory from years ago in the context of the two of you reuniting and reminiscing after not seeing each other for a while. We have four different recorded accounts of Joseph Smith’s first vision, all with the same consistent story but with varying amounts of detail and depth due to the context of why and when he was sharing it.
I want to share my conversion with you. If you’ve served around me, you have probably already heard it before. However, whether you have heard it before or not, I share it in the context and hope that you too can know that God will succor and strengthen you through the “many trials and much testing” you will face on your path to true conversion.
I grew up in a mixed faith household. My mother was raised in the church and is still an active member. My father was raised Christian, joined the church, but overtime became Atheist. I can’t remember a Sunday where my father attended church with us, but my mother is a valiant woman and she took my sister and I every week to church on her own. She is an integral part of the reason I am on a mission and writing this conversion story.
At the age of six, I knew the Book of Mormon was true, and subsequently, I knew that I had a Heavenly Father who loved me. I had a very powerful experience with the Spirit after I prayed to know the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. I like to say that it hit me like a bullet train. I went from kneeling down at the side of my bed, to crying because of the feeling the Spirit brought. Like Joseph Smith, from that moment on I felt I could say that “I had [felt the Spirit confirm the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon]; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it.”²
At the age of 8, I desired to be baptized because of the truth I knew. However, my dad did not give me permission to be baptized. He felt that 8 years old was not old enough to make such a lasting decision. Due to that fact, church policy would not allow me to get baptized until I had the permission of both of my parents, or until I was an adult.
At this point in my story, most people like to ask me about my relationship with my father or with him and my mother. I would like to assure you I love my dad and he has been a wonderful parent to me. He and my mother also love each other and he has been supporting her through some health troubles she’s been facing recently. While he and I disagreed on me being baptized, you can see it from his perspective, He was just a parent trying to make the best decision for his child and not wanting to let me make any hasty life choices that I wasn’t prepared for or had a full understanding of yet.
However, my inability to be baptized did cause some heartache. It was very hard for me to understand at that age why all of my other friends could get baptized and I couldn’t. Same with the sacrament and the temple. It was really painful at some points to see all of my friends get to pass the sacrament while I just sat with my mom and sister. Or when we went on a youth temple trip, I remember everyone else going inside, while I stayed outside with my mom and helped clean the grounds. The young men’s leaders did their best and tried to include me, but sometimes I honestly just felt more excluded when they did. They let me sit with the other deacons before the sacrament was blessed, but it just reminded me that I couldn’t participate like they did when they all stood up and took a tray while I was left alone in the pew. There were times I would have to leave cousins’ baptismal services crying because I wanted to be in the font so badly getting baptized myself. I couldn’t understand why if it was a commandment and I wanted to do it, I couldn’t.
Luckily, I had my mom, really great friends, and some amazing bishops and youth leaders who supported me through the ten years I had to wait to be baptized. When things were hard, they helped me out and kept encouraging me forward. I could also feel God’s love empowering me too. I knew baptism was something He wanted me to do, so I waited. Eventually, I turned 17, and close to turning 18 I went through all of the missionary discussions in about 3 weeks, I had my baptismal interview by a missionary over zoom, and eventually was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, on my 18th birthday.
Almost all of my extended family on my mom’s side showed up, and my dad even supported me as much as he could by making lasagnas for everyone (my extended family is pretty big, so we needed a lot of lasagna). The circle for the confirmation to give me the gift of the Holy Ghost was probably 25 people big. It was one of the best days of my life.
If you had asked me if I was going to get baptized when I was 8, or 10, or 14, or 17, the answer at each age would have been a resounding yes each time. Before my baptism, despite the hardships, I had no doubt in my mind that someday I would be baptized a member of the church. However looking back I see so many scenarios where it might not have worked out the way it did. Maybe my mom stopped going to church because it was too hard to do it on her own, and so I stopped going too. Or maybe if my friends had moved away or I hadn’t had their support for some reason and I strayed off the path during middle school or high school. Or maybe if my leaders just saw an unbaptized youth and treated me differently than everyone else to the point where I didn’t want to join the church anymore. Any number of different things could have happened in the ten year time period from 8 to 18 where I could have lost my desire to be baptized, and yet those things didn’t happen.
As a noun WordWeb defines succor as “assistance in time of difficulty.” And as a verb it defines it as “help in a difficult situation.” Alma 7:11-12 says, “And [Christ] shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.”
I’ve always interpreted that scripture to mean that Christ will empower us and help us through our trials by lending us His divine strength. And while that is true and I promise He will do that, I have come to realize that the Lord will succor us in more ways than that. He will provide family members to teach you and help you through the hardship. He will give you friends that will encourage you and help you maintain your standards. He will give you leaders to guide and support you. He will give you experiences with the Spirit that will strengthen your testimony to overcome the trial in front of you. And there are countless other ways He will succor you throughout your life. The Lord has succored me in many different ways throughout my trials, and without His help and other people being instruments in His hands, I don’t think I would have been able to make it to my baptism.
“And there was not a wicked man slain among them; but there were more than a thousand brought to the knowledge of the truth; thus we see that the Lord worketh in many ways to the salvation of his people.”³
I promise whether you are going through a trial right now, or one is awaiting in your future (because the trials will come), that the Lord is succoring you today, and He will continue to do so the rest of your life. He will be your “[H]elp in a difficult situation.” His succor will come in many different forms, because He “worketh in many ways to the salvation of his people.”
Some of the ways He has helped will not even be realized until you look back after your trial has ended and you can more fully see where His hand was assisting you. He will never forget you. You are known and watched over by the Almighty God Himself. The most powerful being in the universe is supporting and strengthening you. If you ever feel weak or downtrodden, the Savior of the world himself said, “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.”⁴ Trust in that promise from Him to you.
Elder Holland stated “I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines.”⁵ No difficult situation, caused by an outside force or by ourselves, will “separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”⁶
You are and will be succored by Jesus Christ, the Lord Omnipotent. That is not a statement of belief, that is a statement of fact.
I testify to you that I know that my Savior and Redeemer lives. I have felt the succor He gives to me. I have been converted through my many trials and much testing to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and know that you can be converted too. I have felt His love and know that I have a Father in Heaven. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God, and that Christ’s church was restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith. I will follow Jesus Christ for the rest of my life.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
¹ – Conversion definition, from the bible dictionary
² – JS-H 1:25
³ – Alma 24:27
⁴ – John 14:18
⁵ – The Laborers in the Vineyard, April 2012
⁶ – Romans 8:39 (35-39)
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